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Why GaiaYoga®? |
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What Is Nonviolent Communication? |
Here's how we came to this understanding. For many years, we engaged in cutting-edge philosophies and alternative ways of living. In the process, we learned and grew and healed tremendously. But even so, we never hit upon a way of living that wholly satisfied us. Over time, this became quite discouraging and caused us to take a deep look at what was missing. Eventually, we came to see that the foundation of where we were coming from was fragmented. We were focusing on one part of life (such as spirituality, diet, agriculture, communication, etc.) as if it was ALL of life. It was like we were treating one or two spokes of a wheel as if they were the hub, and then wondering why the ride was so bumpy. This didn't mean anything was "wrong" with those spokes – we just couldn't use them as a hub. That understanding was the birth of GaiaYoga. We realized that
we absolutely needed a hub, and that it consisted of making holism
our central focus. In other words, we needed all the facets of
human life to be present in a balanced, sustainable, and sustaining
way. And we defined those primary facets as Spirit, self, community,
and Earth. Moreover, we believe there's an evolutionary process going on, both at the individual and the community level, that's allowing us to make wiser (some might describe it as "higher") choices as to how we want to live. Along with this, we have access to vast amounts of information about how other people and cultures have lived. Many of us have also been exposed to cutting-edge ideas and social experiments, based on relational, spiritual, or environmental teachings, that have opened us to new possibilities and choices. All of this is coming together at this time, enabling us to design custom-made lifestyles and communities, based on the best of what has gone before, the choices of today, and our own creativity and direction. One of the things we've learned from Permaculture is that most problems, especially recurring ones, can be traced to design errors. In other words, if you start out with a bad design, no matter how much energy you put into tweaking it, you're still going to end up with problems. We think the same is true of lifestyles and cultures. We believe the reason that most of us are stuck in various ways in our lives is due to poor design, not an inherent problem in us as humans. (We consider this good news!) GaiaYoga is a tool for looking at the structure of our lives, accounting for all of our needs, and starting to make different choices by re-designing our lives for wholeness, sustainability, and total integration. So, why GaiaYoga? Because we want to have it all, and we want it to work for everyone. We're convinced it's possible. And we don't think we're going to be satisfied with anything less.
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Throughout most of human history, people have lived connected
to the Earth, in some kind of community structure (be it tribe,
clan, village, or whatever), sharing some form of spiritual beliefs
that informed their daily lives. It's only been in the last century
that our world has changed so dramatically, and at incredible
speed, leaving most of us living divorced from the Earth, each
other, Spirit, and even ourselves.